Battle of Fort Necessity

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Battle of Fort Necessity, also called the Battle of the Great Meadows, (3 July 1754), one of the earliest skirmishes of the French and Indian War and the only battle George Washington ever surrendered.

The skirmish occurred on the heels of the Battle of Jumonville Glen (May 28), often cited as the opening battle of the French and Indian War. In the earlier battle Washington and his Indian allies had ambushed Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville and his French Canadian forces, which had earlier in the spring taken over a British fort under construction at the convergence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers (the "Forks," at modern-day Pittsburgh). Washington had been sent to demand France’s evacuation of the area and to engage the French forces in battle if necessary. When the French refused to leave, Washington led a sneak attack on the French from his own headquarters at Great Meadows, south of Fort Duquesne. After the successful raid, the captured Jumonville was suddenly tomahawked to death by Washington’s ally, Mingo (Iroquoian) chief Tanacharison; nine other French captives were then also scalped. A survivor of the raid escaped back to French headquarters at Fort Duquesne and reported on the massacre. Knowing a counterattack by the French was now only a matter of time, Washington fortified his camp at Great Meadows while he awaited the rest of his volunteer regiment.

When the last companies of the Virginia Regiment arrived on 9 June, Washington learned that the colonel had died en route and that he was now the commander of the regiment’s 293 officers and men. Washington put his men to work building a small log palisade at Great Meadows—with a low trench and earth berm around the perimeter—which he christened Fort Necessity. It was in a poor location on low ground that was subject to flooding, with the edge of the higher woodlands within musket range. Reinforcements arrived when South Carolina’s Provincial Independent Company marched in with another one hundred men.

George Washington's sketch map of his journey (1753–54) from what is now Cumberland, Maryland, to Fort LeBoeuf (now Waterford, Pennsylvania), 1754.The Newberry Library

On 3 July, in heavy rain, a force of some 800 French and Indians appeared, commanded by Jumonville’s half-brother, Louis Coulon de Villers. Washington formed his men in ranks to fight outside the fort, but this was not what the French or Indians intended. Instead, they surrounded the fort and opened fire from the woods. Four hours later, Washington’s trench was flooded and exposed to enfilade fire, much of his low supply of powder was wet, and many of his men were dead or wounded. At dusk, the French commander called a truce and offered terms. Washington, with no hope of reinforcement, signed the surrender (written in French) not realizing that it was also a confession to having "assassinated" Louis’s half-brother at the Battle of Jumonville Glen; the two battles in the woods did much to solidify each side’s commitment to war.

At dawn on 4 July, a defeated Washington and his surviving men marched out of the fort, which the French then torched, and returned to Virginia. Embarrassed by the surrender but still proud of his actions, Washington later said, ""I have heard the bullets whistle; and believe me, there is something charming in the sound."